Saying goodbye to an old identity and embracing the new slim line version of you

A couple of weeks ago one of my regular contributors Jo wrote a comment about her experience and some of the realisations she was having. Firstly, thank you Jo, it is great to get feedback from people such as yourself as it helps me to know that I am helping people. It is a nice reminder to me about my motivation in writing this blog.

Jo realised that she was grieving for the “old” version of herself and was wondering if this was why in the past she had hit a wall in her weight loss journey. I think she may be on to something very important here and it is likely to be relevant for many of you too.

You may remember a few weeks ago I wrote about “identify beliefs” and how we can get stuck if we don’t change how we perceive our identity. What Jo was describing sounds like it is connected to this concept in that it was almost as if we are letting go of who we are. This can create many unwanted feelings such as sadness, guilt and fear.

So how do we handle this?

We can start by considering the NLP model of neurological levels as developed by Robert Dilts. Each level of this model influences the rest, the higher up the model you go the more influence is exerted down through the layers. I think it was Einstein who suggested that we cannot change anything on the level that it was created. This means that the best way to impact on our identity is from the Spirit level.

If you would like to read more background on this model go to the resources section of our website, you will find several articles that will give you more detail.

www.gwiznlp.com

Going to the spirit level is really about going bigger picture and considering “who for?” or “what is my mission?” So for someone with an identity about their weight we might also need to look at what other identities they hold, e.g. relationship identities (mother, friend, sister etc). This will help to work out some important values when beginning the change work.

Let’s do a worked example.

For someone with the identity belief “I am fat” we need to start by understanding what this identity was for and how it fit in with others. We can only truly appreciate our identities by recognising where it places us in our world. This might be in our family system for example. What did being the “fat one” give us? How did it set up dynamics with those around us?

Take some time to write down what your “identity” did for you. Focus on what advantages, protections and permissions this identity gave you. If necessary go back to some of my earlier blogs where I wrote about positive intentions, secondary gains and ecology. Go into as much detail as you can. Sometimes it can be challenging uncovering all the important aspects of your identity, for example you may recognise some outcomes that do not appear very positive, for example being teased or even bullied by others. For outcomes such as this take a deep breath and step into your courage and ask yourself the questions:

“What did being teased and bullied by others give me?”

On the surface such experiences appear to be just negative and let me be very clear. It is not okay for people cruelly tease and bully others. That said, if you are to take back your own personal power it is time for you to acknowledge what such experiences gave you at the identity level.

Perhaps you developed a sharp wit or great sense of humour. Perhaps you developed great dignity and grace of spirit. Perhaps you stood up for yourself. Perhaps it made you more sensitive to the feelings of others so that you always treat others gently. These are just a few ideas, maybe for you it was something else. I just know that outside of your awareness you will have gained something even from the harsher side of life.

Take a look at the list you have created of all the advantages, protections and permissions that your old identity has provided for you. As you look at this list how many of these are important for you to keep as you transform your identity? How many are now out of date and no longer needed?

The good news I have for you is that you are going to transform your identity keeping all those aspects that are still valuable and useful to you as you step into your new identity. You will still be you!

Write down “how you want to be different”.

What is your new identity label?

What is the purpose of your transformed identity? What are you here to do?

You may have spent a lot of your life thinking about your weight and may not have had time to explore what is out there and what contribution you can make to the world. Maybe now is the time!

Perhaps you want to inspire others by sharing what you have discovered and being a role model. Perhaps you want to be a fantastic mother/father/friend/partner. Perhaps make a difference in the world.

Write down all the advantages, permissions and protections of this new identity making sure you include all the important ones from how you used to be.

You are now going to write two letters. The first one is to your former self. In this letter I want you to write a gentle, kind and appreciative letter acknowledging everything your former identity has done for you and everything that had to be endured. Take your time to praise your former self and to reassure your former identity that you will keep all the important learning and strategies in your transformed self. Gently confirm that you are ready to transform your identity and that transformation is about change.

What the caterpillar sees as the end of the world

is just the beginning for the butterfly.

Once you have completed this letter put it away somewhere with love and care. You could even put it in a time capsule and bury it outside.

Now write a letter to your transformed self. In this letter detail how excited you are to start this new life with your new way of being in the world. This letter is more a mission statement and a compass for the future. Write down what you plan to do with your life and how you will be. Use as much detail as you can to describe what your future holds, what you will be contributing to those around you and what is important to you now.

And remember to thank your transformed self for remembering to apply all the learning from your former self and to incorporate that into “who” you are now. This letter can become a daily source of inspiration for you. You can add to it or re-write it regularly as your purpose becomes clearer.

Do let me know how you get on with this exercise and anything else that you would like help with.

It would be great to meet you so do come and join me for one of my workshops. We offer NLP training from introduction right up to Trainer’s Training, hypnotherapy and coach training. For more details take a look at our website. There are still some places on our free 2 day introduction to NLP next month in Sussex.

www.gwiznlp.com

Creating a Positive Self Image to motivate you to achieve your target

This week we are going to build on the exercise we started last week. I wonder how many features of your own body you allowed yourself to like and admire? Did you look at yourself through the eyes of someone who loves you?
This week you are going to work further with your internal images of yourself so that you can create a sense of motivation and success.

Close your eyes and create a picture of yourself in your mind. If you have been doing last week’s exercise this image will already be positive. Take a moment now to prepare this image for today’s exercise. Imagine the image of yourself with a white or pastel coloured background. Take away all the context images. One way to picture this is to see yourself as if you have had your picture taken using the current trend in professional photographer studios where there is a blank background.

As you look at that image of yourself firstly make sure it is a current image of the “you” with your current age. See yourself at your best, well groomed, wearing something attractive and looking motivated. As you look at yourself make sure you are noticing that in this picture you have all the personal qualities necessary for you to achieve your goal. In this series we have been talking about seeing yourself a healthy, attractive body size and shape. See yourself with the focus, motivation, confidence, determination, desire, strength, courage, joy, passion and ability to make choices that will make all the difference. Perhaps there is another personal quality that for you is particularly important. Add that in too.
Now make that picture bright, vibrant, positive, colourful, in focus and located just in front of you.

Now imagine floating up above this version of yourself down there in the present moment. From up here looking down you can see a line marking out your past and your future. From up here you can see all the steps that you need to take to achieve your goals and how easily you can do that. How now it is almost automatic. As you look toward to the future notice the point on your future timeline where you have achieved your goal. This might be three months time, six months time or even a year.

Float forward along your timeline until you are floating just above that version of yourself, that version of yourself that has achieved your goal. Notice what it is you had to learn about yourself in order to get here. Perhaps you had to learn how to create appropriate boundaries with others, perhaps you had to speak up for yourself, perhaps you needed to make some important decisions about who you spend time with. Even though you may not know the specifics know that your unconscious mind can store all of that information to ensure that this change in your body is also in your best and highest good.

Now from here in the future look back toward the present and notice a series of images of yourself. You will notice that as each week passes your body will have gradually changed as you moved closer and closer to your goal. Now float down into that version of yourself, the “you” that has achieved the results you have always wanted. Experience what it feels to be this version of yourself. Choose a word to represent how that feels. This is your anchor.

Now float up once more and float back toward your present taking all of those positive feelings and qualities with you. Float back down into your body once more in the present, now. Notice how it feels to know you have what it takes to be successful. Say that word to yourself right now. Feel those feelings throughout your body.

Having completed this exercise take a few moments to write in your journal what you are now going to do to achieve your goals knowing that you can. Repeat the exercise several times a week over the next few months as you move toward your goal.
Next week I will be picking up on a comment made by one of our regular contributors.

Quick reminder, we still have some places on our NLP Diploma in Crowborough next month. The dates are 20th to 23rd June. You can attend the first two days for free to make sure this event is for you. For more details and to download a booking form go to our NLP website

http://www.gwiznlp.com

Building a Positive Internal Image of yourself, think yourself thin!

How did you get on last week I wonder?

Can we really think ourselves thin? Let me give the short answer first “No”!

Now this might surprise some of you, you might think that because I use NLP that I might believe it is all in the mind. Here’s my take on it. Success comes when we combine thinking the right thoughts and taking the right action. Just thinking about being thin without taking any action is just wishful thinking.

However taking action while creating toxic thinking patterns is just as unhelpful as just thinking alone. Success comes from a combination of thinking positively and acting positively.

Let’s start by considering negative body image and how this manifests. Some of you may have heard of a condition called body dysmorphic disorder. This involves perceived ugliness of self and can include body shape and size as well as perceptions of “defects”.

In clinical cases there can be very serious results for the patient in terms of depression and can even lead to suicide. Many people seem to have a non-clinical version of this. They are unhappy with some part of their body but it doesn’t rule their lives.

Where this is relevant to our explorations is where people perceive themselves in a way that is unhelpful to their sense of self and happiness. For example, many people perceive themselves as bigger than they are.

One interesting study involved showing some women silhouettes of women shapes and asking them to pick which one represented their size. Many of the women picked a body shape that was at least two sizes bigger than their actual size. They were then asked to pick out which shape they thought was the most attractive to men. Again many of the women picked at least two sizes smaller than their actual size.

Interestingly enough their partners were also asked to make some assessments. The men were more likely to pick out their partner’s body accurately and often said a body size larger than their partner was the most attractive.

So here we see self perception and perception by others is not always the same.

On the other end of the scale (pun intended), people who have become overweight in the extreme often under-estimate what they think the scale will read. What I have not found studied anywhere is what is going on for these people in turn of their internal image. The number on a scale is very different to our internal image.

We also know that people suffering from anorexia also have body dysmorphic tendencies, this will include their perception of the external image in the mirror as well as their internal image. I know of one young woman who was dangerously thin who in my presence looked at her self in the mirror and called herself “fat”. She had just eaten an apple and then pointed to her stomach and said she could see where it was poking out. As far as I could see there was no evidence of this.

So what can we learn from all this?

As human beings we are very good at distorting our perception of ourselves including our body shape, size and attractiveness. All of the time that we hold a negative internal picture of ourselves we are likely to be reducing our feelings of happiness and well-being. If we are engaged in a healthy eating and exercise plan we risk sabotaging are motivation.

So how do we make lasting changes to how we think about ourselves?

The first step is to challenge both how you perceive yourself in a mirror and how you represent yourself in your own mind. One way to start is to see yourself through the eyes of someone who love’s you. This idea has been used by so many people in the past I don’t know who to credit it too, I just know it’s a great idea.

If this is something you find challenging to do start by finding one feature that you can accept as being attractive, maybe your eyes or your ears or even your ankles. We all have one feature that we can at least privately acknowledge is attractive. Look at that feature directly if you can or in the mirror (looking directly at one’s eyes might be a challenge!).

Give yourself permission to admire yourself.

Write down in your journal what it is about that feature that is attractive.

Now close your eyes and make a picture of yourself in your mind and see how easy it is to notice that attractive feature. While looking at that picture of yourself make the picture itself bigger, brighter, more colourful and vibrant. Look at the expression on your face in that picture and make sure you look happy and motivated. Notice how good you feel about yourself as you look at that picture.

Work with this technique over the next week or so and let me know how you get on, next week we will extend it further and take you to the next step. If you decide to start noticing other attractive features make a note of those too and know you are already ahead as you make more positive internal pictures of yourself.

Now for some news!

I have just received confirmation that I will be speaking at the NLP Conference, London in November. I will be speaking about how to help clients with self esteem issues. If you want more information click on the conference link below

http://www.nlpconference.co.uk/schedules_first.php

 

How internal images shape our bodies, weight loss from the inside out

Today I would like to introduce a topic that I will write about more fully next week. I have two reasons for this, firstly today I am running the assessments on our NLP Master Practitioner training course and need to keep my focus there.

The second reason?

I want you to consider how you see yourself in your mind’s eye. Here are some instructions I would like you to follow and then next week we will explore what may have been there when you looked.

Close your eyes and make a picture of yourself.

What do you look like? How would you describe your body shape? What about your proportions and your size?

How are you dressed (assuming that you are!)?

What expression do you have on your face? How do you feel in this picture?

Now look at the qualities of the picture. Is it bright or dim, black and white or colour, a movie or a still. Look at a whole range of other qualities and make a note.

When you have finished take a moment to write down your thoughts, feelings and insights.

What have you become aware of that you were not aware of before?

If you need to lift your mood listen to the SWISH exercise on our free download and go through the exercise yourself.

www.gwiznlp.com

Next week I will take you through some ideas that I have about our internal images. I would like to hear about your experiences so do post a comment or if you want to be confidential email me at melody@gwiznlp.com

Tonight Joe and I are making a guest appearance at Katie Raver’s NLP group in Austen, Texas by the wonders of the internet. I look forward to meeting you if you are part of that group.

 

Because I deserve it!! When negative self messages are disguised as positive ones.

I was reminded this week of one my personal self-sabotage strategies. There have been times in my life (many of them) when I have said the phrase “I deserve it” either to myself or to someone else just before engaging in a behaviour that is in some way unhealthy for me.

I have noticed this is something many other people do too. In my case it usually proceeds eating something that I will late regret. For other people I have noticed them using this phrase just before smoking a cigarette, drinking alcohol or spending money they don’t have. I am sure there are many other applications too.

I want to break this down a little. Firstly in the case of food, I get that it is good to give yourself a treat. In my opinion usually a little bit of what you fancy does you good! So for me it is mainly chocolate, I include my favourite treat in my healthy eating plan. Jillian Michaels, the personal trainer I mentioned last week recommends that you allow as much as 20% of your calories for treat foods. This avoids feelings of deprivation.

However the deserving phrase slips out for me when I over-indulge. My husband, Joe pointed it out to me and as we discussed it I began to notice what he was getting at. The deserving was really about punishing myself, I was saying “I deserve it” in a negative way. Perhaps there is more to the sentence, could it be:

“I deserve to be fat”?

Considering that phrase has made me wonder how many other people are doing the same thing. I wonder what other seemingly innocent or positive phrases are really disguised negative phrases. Let me know what you think and what self defeating phrases you may have been using. Next week I will suggest how we might counter such negative self talk.

I’m keeping is short this week as I am about to start teaching day two of our NLP Master Practitioner programme, we have a great group of people on the workshop, I’ll see what they think about this topic.

If you would like to join us on an NLP programme check out our NLP website

www.gwiznlp.com

 

Educate yourself! Find out what you need to know about nutrition!

Now I am not an expert on nutrition except that I have learnt what works for me. There is a lot of information out there and some of it is even contradictory. How much are you guessing about the food you eat? What is good for you? What hinders weight loss?

In this week’s blogs I want to suggest a few things for you to find out more about.

One of the things that I found most scary to discover was how much of our food contains ingredients and “other things” that are actually harmful to us and can sabotage effective weight loss.

For example, many so called low calorie convenience food is stuffed full of sugar! Sugar? How crazy is that? There are also a number of additives that research is beginning to show may be harmful to our health. For this reason most nutritionalists recommend that you eat whole foods that you prepare for yourself. By doing this you are making sure you know what you are eating and you can ensure that you avoid harmful chemicals, limit fat, sugar and salt.

You might also want to consider using organic food. Why? To avoid hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and other chemicals. Fruit and vegetables may have been sprayed with a whole range of chemicals to kill bugs and pests. Here’s the thing, if it’s poison for bugs what is it for us? Animals raised with non-organic methods may be pumped full of hormones and antibiotics to promote growth, increased yield etc. All of these chemicals are then passed on to us.

Rather than take my word for it do some research of your own. Read some books, speak to a nutritionalist, an endocrinologist etc. Be cautious of anyone who seems to be pushing an artificial product or supplement. Their advice may be bias toward their product.

A book I found particularly helpful, if a little scary is “Master your metabolism” by Jillian Michaels. I am a big fan of Jillian Michaels, the trainer from the American version of the Biggest Loser. This book gives a lot of really useful background information and so helped me to become better informed.

What have you found out about nutrition? Share with other readers of this blog via the comments section. Please note I will not publish adverts for products as I am not clear about the true health value of many of these products. What I’m looking for is sharing of down to earth and practical tips that others will also find useful.

Let me know how you are doing.

Using NLP to change limiting beliefs into empowering ones

Many of you have already listened to our free MP3 download which guides you through the NLP process “Changing Beliefs”. This week I am going to explain the steps to add to your knowledge and make it easier for you to use this technique.

So how do we start?

Earlier in this blog series I asked you to identify some of the limiting beliefs you hold about yourself, your body image and how the world works including weight loss. For this exercise choose one of these beliefs making sure you have got a way of representing it to yourself as a simple easier to remember statement. Last week I used one of my own old out dated and limiting beliefs:

“No matter what I do I can’t seem to lose weight!”

As detailed in an earlier blog it is important that we acknowledge that there would have been a positive intention behind this belief at the time that it was created. As mentioned a few weeks ago this positive intention may be conscious or unconscious. If it is conscious then we need to bear this in mind when constructing our new alternative, replacement belief (Empowering belief).

There may also have been some secondary gains as also mentioned in earlier blogs so again note needs to be taken to ensure that new alternate ways of achieving healthy versions of these secondary gains are preserved.

Now for what might seem like the strange bit! Consider that old limiting belief, say it to yourself and notice where you keep that belief. I’ll give you a clue! It will either be somewhere within your body or hanging around in the air somewhere around you. It helps to point to the place to locate it. Make a note so you remember this place.

This is where you have been keeping your Limiting belief, this is how you store beliefs that you hold to be true.

Now for those of you thinking “What!”

Yep, it is an odd thing to suggest however this is a metaphor. We seem to have ways of storing information that is spatial as a way of sorting it. This has been written up with reference to how we store our internal representation of other people in the book “Social Panoramas” by Lucas Derks. So here is my suggestion, just go with it and see what happens. If you don’t know where you store your limiting beliefs just make it up and point somewhere!

Have you done it?

We here’s the thing, if you made it up what told you to point to the location you picked? If you haven’t worked it out let me suggest it was your unconscious mind that created the choice you made which means it is probably exactly the right location!

Now that you’ve done that just have a look around the room and count how many things in the room are green. Done that? We call this breaking state in NLP. It is about distracting you from the previous step and engaging another part of the brain before we set the next step.

Now consider an age in childhood where life was pretty ordinary, I’m going to pick the age 13. For whatever age you have picked say a statement such as;

“I am thirteen”

Substitute the age you have picked. Now let me suggest that this is a belief that used to be true but is no longer. So there was a time in your life where if you had said the statement above it would in fact have been true but now it is no longer true. Say the statement to yourself again and now notice where you keep that belief, I’ll give you a clue it will be somewhere else!

Now we have two locations:

1. Limiting Belief – where you keep beliefs that you consider to be true.
2. Younger age belief – where you keep beliefs that used to be true but are no longer.

You will need to keep track of these locations so make a note.

Now you will remember a few weeks ago we talked about constructing for yourself some Empowering replacement beliefs. These beliefs need to be appropriate substitutions for the belief that you had before and the chances are you will not believe them to be true. That is kind of the point!

So to use my example how useful would it be if I came up with:

“No matter what I do I lose weight”

This wording lacks “ecology”, for example no matter how much I believed it if I ate 5000 calories a day, sat around and assuming I didn’t have  a medical condition that burned up calories I would not lose weight  I would gain.

So what is an appropriate ecological replacement?

How about this?

“When I eat fewer calories than I expend, manage my stress levels and ensure that my endocrine system is healthy weight loss is likely.”

So I’ve got a bit technical there. I could have just gone with the first bit but I wanted to include some of the other factors. For example when we are stressed we hold onto weight in lots of ways. If we are eating a lot of processed foods and things that may have unhealthy chemicals in our body is also compromised. I could have also talked about the negative impact of salt but I’m guessing you get the idea.

Now that we have three beliefs we are ready to do the process, so to recap the beliefs are:

1. The limiting belief
2. The used to be true but is no longer
3. The empowering (made up) belief.

Now for the steps of the process. Take the limiting belief and move it to the location of beliefs that used to be true but are no longer. It is your brain, all you have to do is decide to move it there! Notice how this feels. Some people experience marked physical sensations while other do not. This does not appear to make any difference to the success of this process, it is merely interesting!

Say the following statement to yourself as I have written it below.

“Unconscious mind please save any useful learning and information that is worth preserving from this old unwanted belief and keep it in that place where all such learnings are stored so that it can be accessed when needed.”

This is to take care of any unconscious positive intentions and ecology issues.

Now take the belief you have made up and put it in the same place, where you keep beliefs that used to be true and are no longer. Notice how this feels and again some people notice sensations while others don’t.

Now take that empowering belief and put it into that first location, remember this is where you keep beliefs that for you are true. Say the following to yourself as I have written it below.

“Unconscious mind please incorporate any important learnings from the old unwanted belief that may be helpful in a way that is appropriate, healthy and maintains the positive intention of my new belief.”

That is the whole process!! Remember you can listen to it on our free MP3 download, website below.

As a final step imagine yourself now some time in the future maybe six months down the line where this new empowering belief has been normal for you for some time. Look back and notice how your life has improved for the better. Maybe you get some clear ideas of how this change has happened already or perhaps you just get a sense that something positive has just happened and you don’t yet know how that change will manifest itself. Either is better!

That’s it for this week. Behind me I can feel the Spring sunshine on my back, I hope you too are getting a similar experience.

A couple of quick reminders of things your can do with GWiz NLP in the next few weeks

9^th April during the day an NLP Skills refresher day and in the evening an NLP practice group session.

In May we have our next NLP 101 and Diploma in Bedfordshire and in June our next Sussex NLP101 and Diploma. Remember the two day 101 is a free introduction to NLP for those of you who are new to this field for more details check out the website

http://www.gwiznlp.com/

 

Challenging Limiting Beliefs using CBT

Last week I wrote about how we defend our limiting and unhelpful beliefs. This week let’s look at a way to start challenging these beliefs more directly. CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) is an approach that has some great exercises to help with this. This discipline works well in partnership with NLP techniques as there are many cross overs in the processes and exercises used in both.

The exercise I plan to share with you  today is about building a strong argument that challenges the limiting belief on a conscious level, next week we will add in an NLP technique that works on the unconscious level.

I am going to use one of my own out dated limiting beliefs;

“No matter what I do I can’t seem to lose weight!”

This is a belief that sometimes I believed 100% but on other days I would give myself hard time in a different way! I would beat myself up by saying my thinking didn’t make sense!

The good news! I no longer accept this belief as valid and 100% reject it! You can do the same with your limiting beliefs too.

To use this technique you ask yourself  a number of questions. I suggest you write the belief down on a piece of paper and then write down the questions with your answers.

1. Is the belief untrue or inconsistent with reality? Remember last week I mentioned how important consistency is for us? This question helps us shake the foundations of the “old” consistency by challenging it. The idea is to find some evidence that counters your belief either completely or partially. Using my example, well there had been times when I had lost weight even though I put it on again. Secondly when I did actually monitor what I ate and/or exercised regularly I did lose weight. Thirdly even when I wasn’t “trying” to lose weight the number on my scales varied from day to day and sometimes the number went down!
2. Is the belief rigid? With my example much of the challenges above apply to this question too. The idea with this question is to challenge whether the rules of the belief apply all the time or just some of the time or in certain contexts. To use a different example, “I must feel loved before I can lose weight” is a very rigid and confining belief. If you were to substitute the word “must” with “want” and the word “before” with “as” and remove the word “can” things start to change. “I want to feel loved as I lose weight” or what about “I can have a healthy weight independent of feeling loved”. These subtle changes in wording help to change how we process the belief and what kind of evidence we now look for. In NLP terms the original belief phrase had created a Cause and Effect relationship that in order to lose weight the person must feel loved. This too can be challenged.
3. Is the belief extreme? Well in my case, yes it was. My phrasing was all or nothing terminology “no matter what I do” is a pretty extreme statement. Using the second example above we can also see there is an extreme element to the Cause and Effect aspects of the belief. By checking how extreme a belief is we can start to recognise how unlikely it is that it could be true consistently.
4. Is the belief illogical? I’m guessing you are starting to get the idea now. My belief example makes no sense what so ever when you consider the physic of energy in/energy out.  If the amount of calories I was consuming was less than the calories I was expending then I would shed pounds unless there was some medical problem preventing that from happening. I didn’t have a medical problem thus my belief was illogical.  If we apply this to the second example as well it is possible to see that there is no logical connection between feeling loved and losing weight. It is a connection that a person has constructed for themselves that is not logical. You can challenge the logic of this further if you consider that some people become skinny in the extreme when they feel unloved because they have made a different connection between love and weight. Other people drink, take drugs, shop, withdraw, have tantrums etc instead. All of these other strategies are equally illogical!
5. Is the belief unhelpful? In many ways we have already been looking at this in previous blogs however let’s do it again. Consider how does this belief help you? How does it hinder you? Remember when we talked about ecology a limiting belief may help you in unexpected ways. Part of the journey to change a limiting belief is to find healthy alternate ways to get that help. With this exercise make sure you are really clear about how the belief is hindering you. In my example holding the belief meant I often just gave up. I would get angry and go into a “it’s not fair!” spiral. I would use the belief as an excuse or a way to lie to myself. I would often believe I had been eating healthily but I was in fact lying to myself. With the second example we might be denying love that is in our life already, we might be rejecting people because we don’t think we deserve the love, we might be isolating ourselves because we are afraid of rejection and so many other things. I spoke to a man once who broke off his engagement to the woman he loved because he didn’t believe it was possible for her to love him because of his size. She did but he didn’t believe it because of how he felt about himself.

Let me know how you get on with this exercise and next week we’ll add in something else.

Finally this week, I’d like to remind you about some new one day workshops I am starting. They are NLP CPD (Continuous Professional/Personal Development) days aimed at anyone with NLP Practitioner or above. The day will be designed around demonstrating some of the techniques you have already learnt and then coaching you to develop your skills further. The first one is scheduled for 9^th April in Bedfordshire. I already have six people booked so contact me direct if you want more details as places will be limited to allow as much personal coaching as possible. Contact me in the first instance by email melody@gwiznlp.com

Happy Easter

Self Fulfilling Prophecy, how we defend limiting and unhelpful beliefs!

In the next couple of weeks I will be discussing how to challenge limiting and unhelpful beliefs. I will be introducing you to some ideas from both CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). First let us consider how we hang onto these limiting beliefs even when a part of us knows they are untrue!

Last year I wrote about this process in my series of blogs about self-esteem however it is worth repeating with reference to weight loss. As a species we appear to have a need for consistency and this need for consistency can create a drive in us to defend and maintain beliefs that form our “map of the world”. Our map of the world is the perception we have formed of ourselves, others and the way the world works based on our experiences and interactions with that world.

These experiences and interactions create a set of filters that ensure that we edit or distort incoming data to fit what we believe to be true. These filters are created at a very young age and some will be maintaining generational beliefs. Generational beliefs come from the family system and our based on the family mythology. These can be in reference to attitudes about others, the world, politics, wealth or lack of, optimism/pessimism and many other aspects of life. It will also include family attitudes to food as discussed in earlier blogs in this series, for example food as a way of showing love.

We will also take on filters based on what role within the family we take on and these will have been formed either by feedback from others and/or significant experiences. The roles can include; sporty, creative, funny, pretty, skinny and fat. Most of us have several roles however in most families roles are not repeated in the same sibling group. So someone can be the fat, funny, kind one providing a mixture of roles. This mixture can in and of its self bring more internal conflict as we start to make changes in our lives. If in our belief system we have linked being funny and kind with being fat we might have a secondary belief that in order to give up being fat we will have to lose our sense of humour and become unkind. This is unhelpful as it unconsciously creates an internal tension that may trigger sabotage behaviours.

So what happens next? We now have a set of filters defending our beliefs and what we do now is collect evidence to support our beliefs. Any evidence that is presented that appears to support the belief we accept as “proof” that the belief is true. Evidence that contradicts or challenges the belief is either deleted or distorted. The terms deleted and distorted are used in NLP to explain two of the defences employed by our filters.

When we delete something we literally don’t see, hear, feel or experience the evidence. It is a form of self hypnosis. For example if we think we have lost our keys we are capable of looking right at them and not seeing them! Have you ever done that?

A classic example of this can be when someone compliments us for something that contradicts a belief we hold about ourselves. If we are using (unconsciously) the deletion filter we literally do not hear the compliment. We may well respond to something else the other person has said or make an unrelated comment to turn the conversation. What is interesting about this is the impact it also has on the person giving the compliment. They may well feel disregarded, annoyed, hurt or think you are rude. It reduces the likelihood of them giving such a compliment again.

I was recently running one of our NLP 101 workshops and over lunch we were discussing self esteem and weight loss. A young woman on the course who was slightly above her ideal weight was sharing some of her feelings about her boyfriend complimenting her. I asked her if she realised that she is a beautiful young woman and that it was possible that her boyfriend was speaking his truth. She continued speaking as if I had not said anything.

At this point I interrupted her and asked her if she had heard what I had said. When I did this she did recognise that part of her had heard the compliment but it was inconsistent with her own internal perception of herself (my words not hers) so she ignored it. When working with others sometimes as a practitioner there is a benefit in helping people to hear and consider compliments. This was a step for her. By making it conscious I challenged the deletion filter.

Sometimes when a deletion filter is challenged the person switches to a distortion filter. This is where we interpret the data coming in so that it fits with our map of the world! For instance, if we stick with the idea of compliments sometimes we “mind read” the motivation behind the compliment. So instead of taking it on face value we  make up meanings that make the compliment negative such as they are trying to get something out of me! One of the commonest distortions I hear from people when talking about a compliment given by a partner is

“they have to say that they’re married to me!”

The implication being that it couldn’t possibly be true and that their partner is under some kind of obligation to say nice things.

Well back the truck up a minute!

If someone is in relationship with you I suggest that it makes sense that they must at least like you! Maybe they are even attracted to you! Could it be that they love you? Perhaps it is time to start challenging that filter and accepting the possibility that when people say nice things to you that they might actually mean them.

On our free MP3 download I talk in detail about the self fulfilling prophecy, our ability to collect evidence to support our beliefs both positive and negative. Listen to this and consider how it relates to your own beliefs. Maybe you can already see how you might challenge some of your limiting beliefs. Here’s the link

http://www.gwiznlp.com/

Finally this week, I’d like to let you know about some new one day workshops I am starting. They are NLP CPD (Continuous Professional/Personal Development) days aimed at anyone with NLP Practitioner or above. The day will be designed around demonstrating some of the techniques you have already learnt and then coaching you to develop your skills further. The first one is scheduled for 9^th April in Bedfordshire. I already have two people booked so contact me direct if you want more details as places will be limited to allow as much personal coaching as possible. Contact me in the first instance by email melody@gwiznlp.com

What are you saying to yourself? Owning unhelpful internal dialogue

Continuing on from a couple of weeks ago we are going to identify a few more of these unhelpful beliefs we discussed. We are going to do this by listening in on your internal dialogue. What are you saying to yourself.

First for the background information. We all talk to ourselves and it is normal in case you were wondering. Some of our internal dialogue is very conscious and we notice it. This can include running through in your mind tasks you need to do, conversations you wish you had handled differently etc. It can also include self criticism and self motivation.

If we start with self motivation, consider those times you are attempting to do something a little challenging and you are telling yourself:

“I can do this!”

You may be saying a lot more however the key here is that it is motivational and positive. When we talk to ourselves in this way we tend to do well. Even if things don’t go the way we planned we handle it well and are more likely to be philosophical about the outcome. We may make a note of what we have learned from the situation.

When we use self criticism we tend to be quite abusive and say unkind things to ourselves. Sometimes the voice may sound like one of our parents being disappointed or angry with us. When this kind of internal dialogue is running we tend to be discouraged and more likely to give up.

Unfortunately we are often unaware of this internal dialogue and so do not realise the negative impact it is having on us. So the first step is to make this dialogue more conscious.

This internal dialogue may also be directly related to your weight loss or lack of it. For instance, I identified a particularly unhelpful and repetitive message I was giving myself.

“No matter what I do I can’t lose weight! It’s not fair!”

Sometimes I was conscious of this phrase and at other times it was running almost as background noise.

Over the next few weeks get into the habit of asking yourself the following questions at various times during the day (not just about food) and write down the answers.

“What am I saying to myself right now?”

“What am I believing about myself right now?”

When you are about to eat at any point during your day (or night) ask these additional questions:

“Am I hungry?”

“Am I upset, bored, anxious, afraid?”

“What am I feeling?”

Analyse what you have written down and as with the previous exercise pick out the various types of belief that are indicated by the answers to the questions. This will also start to give you what are known as “pre-suppositions”. A pre-supposition is anything we have to accept as true in order to continue a particular line of thinking or behaviour.

For example, if you have identified wanting to eat when you are anxious you may have developed a pre-supposition that being anxious equals a desire to eat. This in turn may lead to you accepting a belief such as:

“When I am anxious I always comfort eat.”

You may also discover some positive pre-suppositions and beliefs, for example.

“When I am busy doing things that interest me I eat only to fuel my body.”

You may also uncover some beliefs that on the surface seem a little confusing. For example “food is love”. Some people share food as a way of expressing love or for celebration. So you might discover that whenever anyone in your circle has something to celebrate that the automatic way of doing this is to go out for a meal together. On the one hand this is a lovely social thing to do but on the other it may have been a behaviour that has contributed to gaining unwanted weight.

Next week we will discuss some ways of challenging these beliefs building on the work we have already done.

If you would like to join me on a workshop check out my website

www.gwiznlp.com

We have an NLP Master Practitioner coming up on 20^th April, a one day development day for Practitioners on 9^th April and for those of you new to NLP a free two day introduction on 21^st March. Contact me for details.

Melody@gwiznlp.com